Puncture [Import]

"Sometimes the brightest light comes from the darkest places" This is the true story about Mike Weiss (Evans) a personal injury lawyer who takes on a huge health supply company after one of his clients is infected with a dirty needle. The client is a nurse in a hospital that uses plastic needles that are re-used over and over. Mike wants to make it so every hospital only uses the one time use only needles that his other client manufactures. The only problem is that Mike is a drug addicted mess. This movie is deceiving. The first half hour to me was a little slow and wasn't sure if I could make it through. When it picked up, it really picked up and sucked me in. By the end of the movie you are very engrossed and are pulling for someone you normally wouldn't. A movie much like "Runaway Jury" mixed with "The Lincoln Lawyer", not quite as good as "Lincoln Lawyer" though. Overall, a very good law movie that will make you think. I give it a B+.

*Also try - Lincoln Lawyer & Runaway Jury

I was lucky enough to see this film when it opened and I was not disappointed. While it may have some subjective flaws, the message of the film is important. And those that see it should remember is it based on a real story; and those rarely satisfy the Hollywood-addicted among us. Real life takes turns we often don't want or expect.

I just hear about the DVD being released and I am going to preorder it when I finish this review. If you don't get distracted by what could be flaws and details that are not part of the main storyline, I think you will like this movie. I also think you will have some greater measure of your opinion of Chris Evans' acting ability. I know I do.

The creators of this movie had to make choices. For viewers who like a artistically well-rounded film, it may have disappointed. The larger "point" to Puncture was to recreate in a microcosm the protracted battle which politically and legally helped expose some of the rampant corruption in the medical supply industry. The actual event was defused by settlement in the early 2000's. The fact that it still strikes a nerve these days is testimony to the work we still need to do in containing the excesses of corruption in the area of commercial health care. It is a reminder of the need for constant vigilance in an arena that too many consumers naively trust.

It's a personal thing, I guess . . . I found it a stylish, well-paced movie with a gripping plot. Like another reviewer, I was more focused on the injustice of the stifling of the invention by corporate power and greed, than wanting a perfectly formed hero and plot resolution. Hey, that's life. It's not usually like a classic movie script. Some of the peripheral characters weren't fleshed out, and the lawyers for the defense were formula villains, but I felt the inventor's helpless rage, Danziger's frustration and fear, and Weiss's alternating disconnection and intensity. If the script was kind of jerky, well, that's the way that Weiss was probably seeing his life go by, and maybe not a bad directorial device.

4 stars for taking on a difficult story that's all too sadly been seen before, and trying it from a different angle.